TUESDAY: January 28, 2025: HAWKESBURY’S “iron horse” Iron Man is back at the stable for another campaign.
But autumn’s Provincial-Midway Championships series is not on the agenda.
Iron Man, who raced four times in town last November – and was placed in every one of them – will not be ready for the annual series.
Instead, trainer Ed O’Rourke is understandably looking ahead to the winter with his five-year-old, given his liking for wet tracks.
“Iron Man had a deserved break after those four runs in November, and we’ll get him ready for winter racing,” he said.
“His three career wins to date have been on soft and heavy ground.”
O’Rourke followed a similar path last year with Iron Man and did a terrific job with the gelding, who raced nine times for two wins and five placings.
Iron Man resumed from an enforced lengthy spell after an operation to rectify his breathing capacity (which it was discovered was only 30 per cent) to win first-up at Canterbury on June 19 last year on a soft track.
He was successful again next time out in a Saturday Benchmark 78 Handicap (1200m) at Rosehill Gardens, again on rain-affected ground, on July 20, defeating Willaidow, who won three of his next four starts in town.
O’Rourke broke through for his first season winner at Wyong last Sunday when the well-named Xtravagant filly Ivana (her dam is Trumped Up Charges) also clinched her first success, in a Provincial Maiden Handicap (1350m).
“It was great to get Ivana off the mark as we have had a few niggling issues with her,” he said.
“Full marks to her rider Mitchell Bell, who won the race for us,” O’Rourke said.
“He made a decision to take off at the right time to sit outside the favorite and leader (Namara), and it was the difference.
“Ivana has pulled up well, and we have a couple of options in regard to her next start.
“There is a Benchmark 64 Handicap (1400m) against her own sex at Hawkesbury’s first meeting of the new year on February 12, and a Midway Benchmark 64 Handicap (1350m) at Wyong the following day.”
O’Rourke liked Ivana when he saw her at the 2023 Inglis Classic yearling sale, and was able to secure her for $60,000.
She raced only once as a two-year-old (the same day Iron Man scored first-up at Canterbury in June last year), and the Wyong race was only her fourth start.
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